Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Unlucky 7

Today I had decided that I was going to do some armchair waymarking - you know, categories like Lucky 7 and Waytours where your waymark is actually a collection of other waymarks. Anyhow, I put together a couple of Lucky 7 waymarks and was in the middle of posting one when I accidently hit backspace. GONE! All that work was gone. I was going over the top too. I had added tons of html - links, photos, you name it - along with a description of each of the waymarks listed as part of the Lucky 7.

Now one would think that this loss taught me a lesson and instead of starting over I opened up MS Word and first typed the waymark information up there. But no, I did indeed start retyping the waymark into the submission form. This time I had completed the whole waymark. It was beautiful other than one typo that I caught, so I hit backspace to jump into that section and correct the mistake and @#$%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guessed it. Gone. All gone.

At first I had to grip the edge of the table to keep myself from tossing my laptop across the room. Then I decided to be more constructive and to write this post with a plea to Groundspeak. It would be so nice if the site autosaved the submission page as posters filled in the info. For simple waymarks this doesn't matter, but for the more entailed waymarks like the history categories or some of the games this would be so helpful. Even now as I type Blogger is saving this post in the off chance the power goes out or I do something stupid. If an autosave feature is asking for too much, what about a window that opens when you try to navigate away from the form and warns you that you will lose your work if you continue. It could say something like - "Hey, BOZO! Yeah, you! Do you realize that by leaving this page you will lose all of this information that you've typed in?!" - or something to that effect. I know that you guys get requests about new functions for the website all of the time, but the painful loss is fresh in my mind so I decide to beg while I can still visualize that fresh, totally empty screen in my mind. Please, help this poor fool and save me from further loss!

The above photo is of a glass installation by Dale Chihuly at Union Station in Tacoma, Washington. The piece, entitled Monarch Window, is waymarked in the "Abstract Public Sculpture" category and is one of the waymarks that I plan on using in my new "Union Station's Lucky 7" waymark when I calm down enough to post it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

OUCH! I have had teh same thing happen on more than one occasion. Very frustrating. I still haven't submitted the last waymark that it happened to me on. I just gave up for the time and haven't gotten back to it.

I feel for you and agree with your plea.

Al Dee Sollinger said...

Hello Rose Red,

I read your post and the picture of the lighthouse on the cape is from the same vantage point of a photo that I took for a waymark in 2005. I think I used it for the default photo. Lovely area and it sounds like your tour was wealth of information.

Have a good day.

TheBeanTeam

Al Dee Sollinger said...

Stupid system. I was kicked out of Rose Reds blog for not being logged in and when I posted again I realized I am back here. Sorry.

The(embarrassed)BeanTeam

Hikenutty said...

Not a problem. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who has lost waymarks that way. My misery loves company. :)